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NASA’s Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: ‘The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive’ – Space.com

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NASA is looking for a new way to get its precious Mars samples back to Earth.

Those samples are being collected by the Perseverance rover in Mars' Jezero Crater, which hosted a lake and a river delta billions of years ago. Getting ahold of the samplesis one of NASA's top science goals; studying pristine Red Planet material in well-equipped labs around the world could reveal key insights about Mars including, perhaps, whether it has ever hosted life, NASA officials say.

The agency has had a Mars sample-return (MSR) architecture in place for some time now, but repeated delays and cost overruns have rendered the original plan impractical, NASA officials announced today (April 15).

"The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive, and not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long," NASA chief Bill Nelson said during a call with reporters this afternoon.

Related:NASA's Mars Sample Return in jeopardy after US Senate questions budget

That price tag is the upper-end estimate calculated by an independent review board, which released its findings last September. For perspective: A study from July 2020 estimated the total cost of MSR to be between $2.5 and $3 billion.

A team from within NASA analyzed those September results, determining that the agency won't be able to get Perseverance's samples back to Earth until 2040 with the established architecture. This conclusion cited reasons such as current budget constraints and the desire not to cannibalize other high-priority science efforts, like the Dragonfly drone mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan.

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The established architecture, by the way, would have sent a NASA-built lander to Jezero Crater. This lander would have brought with it a rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and, potentially, several small retrieval helicopters akin to NASA's pioneering Ingenuity rotorcraft.

The idea was for Perseverance to drive its samples over to the lander, then load them into the MAV. The retrieval choppers may have done some of this loading work as well, especially if Perseverance wasn't in great shape by the time the lander arrived. The MAV would then have launched the samples into Mars orbit, where a spacecraft built by the European Space Agency would have snagged the container and hauled it back toward Earth.

NASA is now seeking a new way forward, however, in an attempt to cut costs and get the samples here sooner. Saving money will aid other agency science projects, and speeding up the timeline could help the agency plan out crewed Mars trips down the line.

"That is unacceptable, [to] wait that long," Nelson said today. "It's the decade of the 2040s that we're going to be landing astronauts on Mars."

The wheels on the new plan (which may retain elements of the old) are already turning. NASA is asking the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California its lead facility for robotic planetary exploration and other agency research centers for innovative MSR ideas, Nelson said today.

NASA is also looking to private industry: The agency plans to release a solicitation for new ideas from the commercial sector tomorrow (April 16), Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate, said during today's call.

NASA will hold an industry day on April 22 and accept proposals through May 17, she added. The goal is to have enough information on hand by late fall or early winter to begin charting a new path forward on MSR. "We're opening this up to everyone, because we want to get every new and fresh idea that we can," Nelson said.

It's unclear at this point, of course, what that new path will look like. But Fox previewed some possibilities, such as a smaller and cheaper MAV and a descoped sample-return tally (from 30 of Perseverance's sealed tubes to some unspecified lower number). Fox and Nelson both stressed that MSR remains a high priority for NASA, despite the difficulty of the task humanity has never launched a rocket from the surface of another planet, after all (though three countries have launched from the moon) in addition to the problems the project has experienced so far.

"I think it's fair to say that we are committed to retrieving the samples that are there at least some of those samples," Nelson said. "We are operating from the premise that this is an important national objective."

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NASA's Mars sample return plan is getting a major overhaul: 'The bottom line is $11 billion is too expensive' - Space.com

NASA Is Asking for Help to Return Samples That Could Uncover Life on Mars – FLYING

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NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has shared the space agencys revised path forward for the Mars Sample Return program, a proposed NASA-European Space Agency (ESA) mission to return Martian rock and soil samples to Earth. NASAs Perseverance rover has been collecting rock and soil samples on the Red Planet since 2021.

The agency is asking the NASA community, including its Jet Propulsion Laboratory and other agency centers, to collaborate on out-of-the-box designs, using existing technology, that could return the samples.

NASA on Monday released its response to a September 2023 Independent Review Board (IRB) report analyzing Mars Sample Return and its costs. It estimated the missions budget at $8 billion to $11 billion, with the high end of that range being more than double previous estimates of $4.4 billion.

Under those constraints, Nelson said, the mission would not return samples until 2040, which he said is unacceptable.

Mars Sample Return will be one of the most complex missions NASA has ever undertaken, said Nelson. The bottom line is, an $11 billion budget is too expensive, and a 2040 return date is too far away. Safely landing and collecting the samples, launching a rocket with the samples off another planetwhich has never been done beforeand safely transporting the samples more than 33 million miles back to Earth is no small task. We need to look outside the box to find a way ahead that is both affordable and returns samples in a reasonable timeframe.

Nelson also pointed to Congress recent budget cuts as a contributing factor in the agencys current challenges.

The agencys response to the IRB report includes an updated mission design with reduced complexity; improved resiliency; risk posture; [and] stronger accountability and coordination.

It said it will solicit proposals from the industry that could return samples in the 2030s, with responses expected in the fall. These alternative mission designs, NASA said, would reduce cost, risk, and mission complexity. It is unclear exactly what kind of solution the agency is seeking. But it emphasized leveraging existing technologies that do not require large amounts of time and money to develop.

Without more funding, according to NASA, Mars Sample Return could dip into money allocated for projects at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other centers. Projects such as Dragonfly, a mission to Saturns largest moon, Titan, could be discontinued, warned Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate.

Plans for a Mars sample return mission have been proposed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2001. The samples are expected to help researchers understand the formation and evolution of the solar system and habitable worlds, including our own. They could be used to learn whether there was ancient life on Mars and aid in the search for life elsewhere in the universe.

NASAs Perseverance rover landed on Mars in 2021 and has been collecting samples since. Originally, the plan was to return them to Earth in 2033 using a rocket, orbiter, and lander. However, the IRB report found that the orbiter and lander likely would not leave the Earth until that year.

A Sample Retrieval Lander would deploy a small rocket to collect samples from Perseverance, using an ESA-provided robotic arm. Sample recovery helicoptersbased on the successful Ingenuity autonomous Mars helicopter and also capable of collecting sampleswould serve as backup.

A Mars Ascent Vehicle, which would be the first rocket to launch off the Mars surface, would carry samples to the planets orbit, where they would be captured by an Earth Return Orbitealso designed by ESAand brought back to Earth.

The initiative would be the first international, interplanetary mission to return samples from another planet and, according to NASA, would return the most carefully selected and well-documented set of samples ever delivered from another planet.

Earlier this year, the space agency marked the 20-year anniversary of its twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers arrival on the Martian surface, where they provided the first compelling evidence that the red planet once held water.

NASAs Curiosity rover is currently surveying a region of the planet thought to have been carved by a river billions of years ago. Its explorations could lead to further discoveries about life on Mars.

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Could these big expandable habitats help humanity settle the moon and Mars? – Space.com

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COLORADO SPRINGS Max Space wants to help humanity expand into the final frontier.

The startup is developing a range of inflatable space habitats, the largest of which could provide as much internal volume as a sports stadium. These plans, which Max Space unveiled on Tuesday (April 9) here at the 39th Space Symposium, are designed to help our species make the difficult leap off its home planet.

"The problem with space today is, there isn't enough habitable space in space," Max Space co-founder Aaron Kemmer said in a statement on Tuesday. "Unless we make usable space in space a lot less expensive, and much much larger, humanity's future in space will remain limited."

Related: Living on the moon: What it would be like (infographic)

Back in 2010, Kemmer co-founded the off-Earth manufacturing company Made In Space, which has sent multiple 3D-printing devices to the International Space Station (ISS) over the years. (Made In Space was acquired by Redwire in 2020.)

He says that experience helped convince him that expandable habitats are the future, citing one of the machines Made In Space modified for use on the ISS.

"It's like a three-story system on Earth, and all the engineering wasn't to make it work in space it was actually to get it down to a locker [size], just because there wasn't enough real estate in there," Kemmer told Space.com in an interview here at the symposium on Tuesday.

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Expandable habitats, as the name suggests, launch in compressed form to fit inside rocket fairings but increase in size greatly when deployed in space. They therefore offer much more bang for the buck volume-wise than traditional "tin can" module designs.

An expandable habitat with 100 cubic meters (3,530 cubic feet) of pressurized volume, for example, would be "at least an order of magnitude cheaper" than a comparable metallic one, Kemmer said. (For perspective: The ISS offers 388 cubic meters, or 13,700 cubic feet, of habitable volume, not including the space provided by visiting vehicles.)

This is not a sci-fi concept; three expandable module prototypes are actually circling Earth right now. They are Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, which are free fliers that launched in 2006 and 2007 respectively, and the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), which has been attached to the ISS since 2016.

All three were built by Nevada-based company Bigelow Aerospace, which closed its doors in 2020. The pressure-restraining hulls for Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were designed and manufactured by Thin Red Line Aerospace, a small Canadian company run by Maxim de Jong Max Space's other co-founder.

The new startup, which has been in operation for about a year, is commercializing Thin Red Line Aerospace technology, Kemmer and de Jong said. But that tech isn't just a Genesis retread.

"It's a very, very, very different approach, where you're just putting fibers in an uncoupled scenario where they don't conflict with one another," de Jong told Space.com on Tuesday. The result, he and Kemmer said, is a cost-effective module that expands in a predictable and reliable way, and is highly scalable to larger sizes.

The new tech will get its first off-Earth test just two years from now, if all goes according to plan: Max Space has booked a spot on a SpaceX rideshare launch in 2026.

That mission will send a module the size of two large suitcases to orbit. However, that's the habitat's compressed configuration. Once deployed, it will expand to a pressurized volume of 20 cubic meters (706 cubic feet).

This deployment will set a new record for expandable habitats. The two Genesis prototypes both feature 11.5 cubic meters (406 cubic feet) of internal volume, while BEAM has 16 cubic meters (565 cubic feet).

Max Space has already built a full-size prototype of the first flight unit, which the company is using for ground testing, Kemmer said. It has started manufacturing the flight vehicle, which will not feature life-support systems but will have the same shielding and strength as human-rated versions.

Related: NASA's moon-orbiting space station will be claustrophobic, architect says

Max Space plans to keep moving fast after this pioneering module makes it to orbit. The startup aims to launch its first 100-cubic-meter (3,531 cubic feet) module in 2027 and to get a 1,000-cubic-meter (35,314 cubic feet) behemoth up by 2030. Even larger variants could potentially launch thereafter, aboard SpaceX's Starship megarocket or Blue Origin's New Glenn vehicle, the company said.

The goal is to provide a variety of destinations to a range of customers, from pharmaceutical companies that want to mass-produce medicines in microgravity to commercial space stations that want to expand their living space all the way to movie studios looking to film in orbit.

"We have several space production companies that we're talking to," Kemmer said. The company has already secured some customer contracts, including from the U.S. Space Force, he added.

But Earth orbit will be just the starting point for Max Space modules, if all goes according to plan.

"My dream is to have a city on the moon before I die," Kemmer said. "So I look at this like, this is going to be the habitat, the structures, that are going to go inside the lava tubes buried under the [lunar] surface."

The company's modules would then make their way to Mars, if all goes well, for Max Space wants to be a key enabler of off-Earth settlement. Indeed, that's why Kemmer and de Jong founded the company to help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system.

"That was the entire reason," Kemmer said.

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Elon Musk Doubles Down on Mars Dreams and Details What’s Next for SpaceX’s Starship – Singularity Hub

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Elon Musk has long been open about his dreams of using SpaceX to spread humanitys presence further into the solar system. And last weekend, he gave an updated outline of his vision for how the companys rockets could enable the colonization of Mars.

The serial entrepreneur has been clear for a number of years that the main motivation for founding SpaceX was to make humans a multiplanetary species. For a long time, that seemed like the kind of aspirational goal one might set to inspire and motivate engineers rather than one with a realistic chance of coming to fruition.

But following the successful launch of the companys mammoth Starship vehicle last month, the idea is beginning to look less far-fetched. And in a speech at the companys facilities in South Texas, Musk explained how he envisions using Starship to deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars over the next couple of decades to create a self-sustaining civilization.

Starship is the first design of a rocket that is actually capable of making life multiplanetary, Musk said. No rocket before this has had the potential to extend life to another planet.

In a slightly rambling opening to the speech, Musk explained that making humans multiplanetary could be an essential insurance policy in case anything catastrophic happens to Earth. The red planet is the most obvious choice, he said, as its neither too close nor too far from Earth and has many of the raw ingredients required to support a functioning settlement.

But he estimates it will require us to deliver several million tons of cargo to the surface to get that civilization up and running. Starship is central to those plans, and Musk outlined the companys roadmap for the massive rocket over the coming years.

Key to the vision is making the vehicle entirely reusable. That means the first hurdle is proving SpaceX can land and reuse both the Super Heavy first stage rocket and the Starship spacecraft itself. The second of those challenges will be tougher, as the vehicle must survive reentry to the atmospherein the most recent test, it broke up on its way back to Earth.

Musk says they plan to demonstrate the ability to land and reuse the Super Heavy booster this year, which he thinks has an 80 to 90 percent chance of success. Assuming they can get Starship to survive the extreme heat of reentry, they are also going to attempt landing the vehicle on a mock launch pad out at sea in 2024, with the aim of being able to land and reuse it by next year.

Proving the rocket works and is reusable is just the very first step in Musks Mars ambitions though. To achieve his goal of delivering a million people to the red planet in the next 20 years, SpaceX will have to massively ramp up its production and launch capabilities.

The company is currently building a second launch tower at its base in South Texas and is also planning to build two more at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Musk said the Texas sites would be mostly used for test launches and development work, with the Florida ones being the main hub for launches once Starship begins commercial operations.

SpaceX plans to build six Starships this year, according to Musk, but it is also building what he called a giant factory that will enable it to massively ramp up production of the spacecraft. The long-term goal is to produce multiple Starships a day. Thats crucial, according to Musk, because Starships initially wont return from Mars and will instead be used as raw materials to construct structures on the surface.

The company also plans to continue development of Starship, boosting its carrying capacity from around 100 tons today to 200 tons in the future and enabling it to complete multiple launches in a day. SpaceX also hopes to demonstrate ship-to-ship refueling in orbit next year. It will be necessary to replenish the fuel used up by Starship on launch so it has a full tank as it sets off for Mars.

Those missions will depart when the orbits of Earth and Mars bring them close together, an alignment that only happens every 26 months. As such, Musk envisions entire armadas of Starships setting off together whenever these windows arrive.

SpaceX has done some early work on what needs to happen once Starships arrive at the red planet. Theyve identified promising landing sites and the infrastructure that will need setting up, including power generation, ice-mining facilities, propellant factories, and communication networks. But Musk admits theyve yet to start development of any of these.

One glaring omission in the talk was any detail on whos going to be paying for all of this. While the goal of making humankind multiplanetary is a noble one, its far from clear how the endeavor would make money for those who put up the funds to make it possible.

Musk estimates that the cost of each launch could eventually fall to just $2 to $3 million. And he noted that profits from the companys Starlink satellites and Falcon 9 launch vehicle are currently paying for Starships development. But those revenue streams are unlikely to cover the thousands of launches a year required to make his Mars dreams a reality.

Still, the very fact that the questions these days are more about economics than technical feasibility is testament to the rapid progress SpaceX has made. The dream of becoming a multiplanetary species may not be science fiction for much longer.

Image Credit: SpaceX

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Elon Musk Doubles Down on Mars Dreams and Details What's Next for SpaceX's Starship - Singularity Hub

SpaceX’s giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) – Space.com

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SpaceX's Starship, the largest rocket in the world, will get even bigger as the company continues to target Mars missions in the future.

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of SpaceX, told employees on April 4 that Starship will eventually be as tall as 500 feet (150 meters), roughly 20% higher than the massive system aboard the Super Heavy rocket right now.

What's more, advances in reusability will have each launch cost roughly $3 million each, Musk predicted; that's less than a third of what a (much smaller) Falcon 1 rocket launch cost in 2004 when inflation is taken into account. (The figure two decades ago was $5.9 million, according to NBC, which is roughly $9.5 million in 2024 dollars.)

"These are sort of unthinkable numbers," Musk said in the Starship update, released publicly April 6, roughly one month after the third and last test flight to date. "Nobody ever thought that this was possible, but we're not breaking any physics to achieve this. So this is within the bounds, without breaking physics. We can do this."

Related: SpaceX fires up huge Super Heavy booster ahead of 4th Starship test flight (photos, video)

Musk tends to deliver Starship updates at least once a year to highlight progress the company is making toward its long-term plans of settling Mars. Indeed, the last year has seen three Starship launches, so there has been progress made recently. Musk didn't, however, address delays in launching Starship that have contributed to pushing back the launch date for the first moon landing under the NASA-led Artemis program.

SpaceX was named the vendor for the Artemis 3 landing mission that, until recently, was set for 2025. In January, NASA elected to hold the launch date another year, to 2026, due to a range of technical issues. Aside from Starship not being ready the agency wants many successful launches before approving it for astronaut flights Artemis 3 was also delayed due to slow progress on spacesuits and problems with the mission's Orion spacecraft, among other factors.

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However, Musk's words about Artemis, to employees, focused on Starship's future capabilities: orbiting the Earth and refilling its tanks, both of which have yet to be proven on its three test flights.

"This will ... be very important for the Artemis program for the NASA to get back to the moon," Musk said of those capabilities. He also envisions a "Moon Base Alpha" that would include ships "specialized for going to and from the moon", meaning there would be no heat shield or flaps due to the lack of atmosphere.

Related: NASA celebrates SpaceX Starship's 3rd test flight, but more work needed ahead of Artemis moon missions

Musk's 45-minute speech touched on the usual themes for his Red Planet updates, focusing on how to send a lot of cargo out there for eventual settlers. He noted that would take thousands of launches to do; for perspective, Musk said the company has completed 327 successful Falcon series launches and about 80 percent of those had reused boosters (a key factor in reducing cost.)

SpaceX is by far the most active launching entity on Earth, and Musk forecasts the company will send roughly 90 percent of orbital mass aloft this year compared to China's 6 percent (the second-largest entity.)

Starship's next and fourth spaceflight attempt, expected to take place in May, aims to have the first stage of Super Heavy land "on essentially a virtual tower" in the Gulf of Mexico, Musk said. Once the company safely gets that done, they will consider using the launching area at Starbase, in south Texas, for future landings as soon as Flight 5. (Musk pegged the chances of success on Flight 4 at 80% or 90%.)

Musk also wants to perform two splashdowns of the upper stage of Starship in a row, in a controlled fashion, before sending it to Starbase on a future flight. "We do not want to rain debris over Mexico or the U.S.," he said. "My guess is probably next year when we will be able to reuse Starship."

Overall, Musk plans for multiple Starship launches to take place this year, and suggests SpaceX will build an additional six spacecraft by the end of 2024. A new rocket factory for the company should be available in 2025, which would make production even faster.

Future versions of Starship will include a "Starship 2" to send 100 tons of payload to low-Earth orbit and the 500-foot "Starship 3" for 200 or more tons. Bigger vehicles, Musk stressed, will mean fewer (four or five) refueling missions in low Earth orbit to get a Starship ready for the journey to Mars someday.

Of these milestones, Musk said it would be "very much a success-oriented schedule." His speech did not mention the Federal Aviation Administration, which must approve each one of the launches, nor ongoing criticism of the environmental impact of Starship on the ecologically sensitive area near Starbase.

That impact may continue to grow, as Musk said it would take roughly 10 launches a day to send hundreds of vehicles to Mars every two years (when the planet is closest) to make a long-term settlement feasible. As for the number of Mars-bound people, that would be roughly a million folks, he said that matches predictions he made at least as far back as 2017. Musk also says he wants to get the settlement going "in 20 years." He said the same thing in 2011.

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SpaceX's giant Starship will be 500 feet tall for Mars missions, Elon Musk says (video) - Space.com

SpaceX to have 2 launches on Wednesday of Starlink smallsats and Maxar WorldView Legion 1 & 2 SatNews – SatNews

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Starlink 6-51 mission on Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 9:24PM (UTC). LC-39AKennedy Space Center Florida, A batch of satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation SpaceXs project for space-based Internet communication system.

SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 is a two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. The Block 5 variant is the fifth major interval aimed at improving upon the ability for rapid reusability.

SpaceX to launch Maxar WorldView Legion 1 & 2 mission for leading resolution and accuracy

Also scheduled for launch on Wednesday a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the WorldView Legion 1 & 2 mission on Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 6:30PM (UTC). WorldView Legion is a constellation of Earth observation satellites built and operated by Maxar. Constellation is planned to consist of 6 satellites in both polar and mid-inclination orbits, providing 30 cm-class resolution.

Space Launch Complex 4E has witnessed the launch of 141 rockets, including 141 orbital launch attempts, while Vandenberg SFB, California, has been the site for 752 rocket launches. The launch cost is $52 Million.

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SpaceX to have 2 launches on Wednesday of Starlink smallsats and Maxar WorldView Legion 1 & 2 SatNews - SatNews

RHOC Alum Lauri Peterson Announces Death of Son Josh Waring at 35: ‘Every Fiber in My Body Hurts’ – Yahoo News Canada

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No one can ever prepare you for this feeling of such deep loss, Peterson wrote on Instagram

Instagram/lauri_peterson

Lauri Petersons son Josh Waring died on March 31. He was 35.

The Real Housewives of Orange County alum, 63, announced his death on April 6 on Instagram, writing, It is with a shattered heart that I write this post to let you know that my sweet Josh left this earth Easter Sunday.

PEOPLE reached out to Peterson for comment, but she did not immediately respond.

Alongside photos of Waring throughout the years from childhood pictures to shots of him with his daughter, Kennady Peterson also included a heartfelt message about his life and death.

"No one can ever prepare you for this feeling of such deep loss, she wrote, adding that every fiber in my body hurts.

Related: Paying Tribute to the Celebrities Who Have Died in 2024

The former RHOC star went on to say that Waring fought every single day for most of his adult life, for his life, but this past Sunday, the challenge was too great.

Joshs childhood was filled with deep intellect, humor, pranks, athletics, snow boarding, body boarding mountain hikes, reading, friends and his love for music, she wrote. Even during adult hardship, Josh continued to maintain his sense of humor, continued to be optimistic, continued to be kind to others, defended those that were unable to defend themselves and continued to love his family so so much!

Reflecting on his years as a father, she wrote that he received the most joy, pride and purpose through his daughter Kennady and watching her grow and thrive over the years, and thanked those who have tried to help Josh along the way.

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I am witness to many Angels on earth. Not everyone understands those suffering from substance abuse disorder, but I am forever grateful for your understanding and the impact you made on his life, she continued. I also thank those who have supported me through this journey and offering kind words of encouragement by sharing their stories of living with substance abuse disorder and the many parents that have shared their stories over the years with me about the children they have sadly lost due to this illness.

Story continues

Josh I love you so much and I will miss you terribly! Peterson continued. I will forever be your Mama Bear & Mama Dukes and every time the clock turns to 11:11, I will expect your call to tell me to make a wish! What will I wish for now? My heart is with you and I pray you have found the peace that you so deserve. Heaven has gained the coolest angel and you have gained your freedom at last sweet boy. Love always and forever, Mom.

Related: The Real Housewives of Orange County Turns 18: See How Andy Cohen and the Cast Celebrated Milestone

In recent years, Waring made headlines for his legal troubles, pleading guilty to a 2022 drug charge after he was found in possession of fentanyl and methamphetamine, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Waring also spent four years in prison for attempted murder after shooting a man named Daniel Lopez outside of a sober living home in 2016. Lopez survived the shooting.

Peterson spoke out about her sons legal troubles on social media in 2018, alleging he had been set up by police.

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RHOC Alum Lauri Peterson Announces Death of Son Josh Waring at 35: 'Every Fiber in My Body Hurts' - Yahoo News Canada

Real Housewives star Lauri Peterson announces heartbreaking death of her son, 35 – HELLO!

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Lauri Peterson, a former Real Housewives of Orange County star, has announced thetragic death of her son Josh, who died on March 31 at the age of 35. Lauri shared the news on Instagram alongside a series of beautiful pictures of Josh throughout his life, and with his daughter Kennady, whom Lauri adopted due to his drug addiction.

In the post, Lauri thanked those who had made an impact on Josh's life and supported Lauri through this journey.

"It is with a shattered heart that I write this post to let you know that my sweet Josh left this earth Easter Sunday. No one can ever prepare you for this feeling of such deep loss," she wrote.

"Every fiber in my body hurts. Josh fought every single day for most of his adult life, for his life, but this past Sunday, the challenge was too great."

Lauri continued: "Not everyone understands those suffering from substance abuse disorder, but I am forever grateful for your understanding and the impact you made on his life. I also thank those who have supported me through this journey and offering kind words of encouragement by sharing their stories of living with substance abuse disorder and the many parents that have shared their stories over the years with me about the children they have sadly lost due to this illness."

Lauri shared that Josh "received the most joy, pride and purpose through his daughter Kennady and watching her grow and thrive over the years," and wrote that she prayed that he had now "found the peace you deserve".

Kennady is now in the fifth grade, and lives with Lauri and her husband George, whom she married in 2007.

Over the years, Josh had been in the headlines for various legal troubles, including most recent in 2022 when he was found in possession of fentanyl and methamphetamine. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison.

He had spent four years in prison for attempted murder after shooting a man named Daniel Lopez outside of a sober living home in 2016. Daniel survived the attack.

Lauri always insisted that Josh had been set up by police. In 2018 she wrote on social media: "After keeping silent for nearly 2 years in regards to my son's arrest, I am going to begin laying out the facts of his case and how easily it is to be falsely accused!"

Lauri quit the Real Housewivesfranchise in 2008 after Josh, who had struggled with a heroin addiction, relapsed and was sentenced to eight months in jail.

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Real Housewives star Lauri Peterson announces heartbreaking death of her son, 35 - HELLO!

‘RHOC’ Alum Lauri Peterson Reveals Son Joshua-Michael Waring Passed Away at Age 35 – Just Jared

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Lauri Peterson is mourning the loss of her son.

On Saturday (April 6), the 63-year-old former Real Housewives of Orange City star announced on Instagram that her son Joshua-Michael Waring had passed away at the age of 35.

It is with a shattered heart that I write this post to let you know that my sweet Josh left this earth Easter Sunday, Lauri wrote along with photos of Joshua-Michael over the years. No one can ever prepare you for this feeling of such deep loss. Every fiber in my body hurts. Josh fought every single day for most of his adult life, for his life, but this past Sunday, the challenge was too great.

Keep reading to find out moreJoshs childhood was filled with deep intellect, humor, pranks, athletics, snow boarding, body boarding mountain hikes, reading, friends and his love for music, Lauri continued. Even during adult hardship, Josh continued to maintain his sense of humor, continued to be optimistic, continued to be kind to others, defended those that were unable to defend themselves and continued to love his family so so much! He received the most joy, pride and purpose through his daughter Kennady and watching her grow and thrive over the years.

She added, Thank you to all of the people that have tried to help Josh along the way. I am witness to many Angels on earth. Not everyone understands those suffering from substance abuse disorder, but I am forever grateful for your understanding and the impact you made on his life. I also thank those who have supported me through this journey and offering kind words of encouragement by sharing their stories of living with substance abuse disorder and the many parents that have shared their stories over the years with me about the children they have sadly lost due to this illness.

Josh I love you so much and I will miss you terribly! I will forever be your Mama Bear & Mama Dukes and every time the clock turns to 11:11, I will expect your call to tell me to make a wish! Lauri concluded. What will I wish for now? My heart is with you and I pray you have found the peace that you so deserve. Heaven has gained the coolest angel and you have gained your freedom at last sweet boy. Love always and forever, Mom Joshua-Michael Phillip Waring 12/20/88-3/31/24

After Lauri shared the post, Andy Cohen took to the comments to send his condolences.

Lauri I am so sorry. This is heartbreaking, Andy wrote. You tried so hard to save him, and by sharing Joshs story you would up educating people around the world about the tragedy of addiction for those who are touched by it. May Joshs memory be a blessing to you always. Sending your family all my love.

Lauri appeared in the first eight seasons of RHOC. She and husband George Peterson welcomed Joshua-Michael in 1988, followed by daughters Ashley and Sophie.

Joshua-Michael leaves behind 11-year-old daughter Kennady.

Our thoughts are with Joshua-Michaels loved ones during this difficult time. RIP.

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'RHOC' Alum Lauri Peterson Reveals Son Joshua-Michael Waring Passed Away at Age 35 - Just Jared

RHOC Alum Lauri Peterson’s Son Josh Waring Has Passed Away at 35, See Her Sweet Tribute to Him – Reality Blurb

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Very heartbreaking news to report asJosh Waring, the son of the Real Housewives of Orange County alum Lauri Peterson, has passed away at the age of 35.

Just moments ago, Lauri took to her Instagram page to announce that Josh died on Easter Sunday.

It is with a shattered heart that I write this post to let you know that my sweet Josh left this earth Easter Sunday, shared Lauri on April 6.

She continued, No one can ever prepare you for this feeling of such deep loss. Every fiber in my body hurts. Josh fought every single day for most of his adult life, for his life, but this past Sunday, the challenge was too great.

Lauri then went on to describe the kind of person Josh was.

Even during adult hardship, Josh continued to maintain his sense of humor, continued to be optimistic, continued to be kind to others, defended those that were unable to defend themselves and continued to love his family so so much! He received the most joy, pride and purpose through his daughter Kennady and watching her grow and thrive over the years, she wrote.

Lauri also shed some light on substance abuse issues, something Josh struggled with throughout his adult life in addition to his run-ins with the law, as she thanked those who tried to help him over the years.

Thank you to all of the people that have tried to help Josh along the way. I am witness to many Angels on earth. Not everyone understands those suffering from substance abuse disorder, but I am forever grateful for your understanding and the impact you made on his life. I also thank those who have supported me through this journey and offering kind words of encouragement by sharing their stories of living with substance abuse disorder and the many parents that have shared their stories over the years with me about the children they have sadly lost due to this illness, shared Lauri.

Lastly, she shared some sweet words for her son.

She wrote, Josh I love you so much and I will miss you terribly! I will forever be your Mama Bear & Mama Dukes and every time the clock turns to 11:11, I will expect your call to tell me to make a wish! What will I wish for now? My heart is with you and I pray you have found the peace that you so deserve. Heaven has gained the coolest angel and you have gained your freedom at last sweet boy. Love always and forever, Mom Joshua-Michael Phillip Waring 12/20/88-3/31/24.

Lauri welcomed Josh in 1988, followed by daughters Ashley and Sophie. Josh is also survived by his young daughter, 11-yr-old Kennady.

RIP Joshua.

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RHOC Alum Lauri Peterson's Son Josh Waring Has Passed Away at 35, See Her Sweet Tribute to Him - Reality Blurb

NASA Craft Hunting Alien Life Will Carry a New Message From Humanity – Futurism

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An incredible time capsule. Anyone There?

One of NASA's latest probesis carrying on the grand tradition of blasting humanity's message out to the cosmos and this one's searching for life outside of our pale blue dot.

As Gizmodo reports, the space agency has recruited a nonprofit specializing in research and design for future interstellar messaging to assist in its quest not only to find whether Jupiter's icy moon Europa harbors the conditions for life, but also to communicate with anyone or anything that may come across the craft, too.

That nonprofit, named METI International after its "Messages to Extraterrestrial Intelligence" concept, toldGizmodo that the Europa Clipper mission was a "natural match" for its organization.

"METIs earliest contribution to the project draws on the science of linguistics, which identifies the major families of languages on Earth," METI founder and president Douglas Vakoch told the website in an email. "This let us identify a broadly representative sampling of languages to feature on the message plate."

In a commemorative plate mounted onto the roughly-triangular probe, NASA has inscribed a handwritten version of "In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa," which was penned by US Poet Laureate Ada Limn specifically for the mission.

The craft also contains a far-out etching of a bottle surrounded by rings a reference to the agency's "Message in a Bottle" campaign, which urged the public to send their names to be included on the probe. In a microchip at the bottle's center, more than 2.6 million names were stenciled using an electron beam at NASA and CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

One of the mission's coolest communiqus, however, is on the other side of the craft. With METI's help, NASA compiled recordings of people saying the word "water" in 103 global languages and converted them into visual waveforms. Those waveforms were then etched onto the probe in a beautiful starburst design, with the American Sign Language symbol for water resting at its center.

In a nod to our species' own quest to find intelligent life, NASA also included the "Drake equation," named after revered astronomer Frank Drake, who in 1961 developed a formula to try to determine how many advanced civilizations may be out there.

Ultimately, as Vokoch explains, the Europa Clipper's message is more of a time capsule of sorts for future humans than its predecessors sent out on the Pioneer and Voyager missions.

"The more we developed the various parts of the message to be attached to the Europa Clipper," the METI founder told Gizmodo, "the clearer it became that none of these could be interpreted if they were discovered by someone who wasnt already familiar with the contents."

Whether discovered by alien civilizations or by future humans, the Europa Clipper's "message in a bottle" may not make sense to anyone who may find it but ultimately, as its collaborator says, that's beside the point.

More on extraterrestrial life: Scientists Check Whether Space Telescope Could Detect Life on Earth

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NASA Craft Hunting Alien Life Will Carry a New Message From Humanity - Futurism

Scientists Check Whether Space Telescope Could Detect Life on Earth – Futurism

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A pretty smart reality check! Planet Here

We have some truly epic news.

There is indeed life on Earth.

A team of American and European scientists have confirmed this not-so-surprising observation after they simulated the workings of a proposed space telescope, and then focused the telescope on Earth, treating it like a distant exoplanet to see if the instrument could pick up evidence of life.

In this kind-of-round-about way, the scientists can estimate the future performance of the space telescope, called LIFE or Large Interferometer For Exoplanets, when it's deployed into space to search for exoplanets that are similar to our own.

The scientists detailed the findings in a study published in The Astronomical Journal. Currently, there is no exact date when the LIFE telescope being overseen by the Swiss university ETH Zrich would start getting built, but this paper at least shows that its ambitions are viable.

The scientists created a synthetic version of Earth and had a simulated version of the telescope examine it for "biosignatures," or chemicals in the atmosphere that would indicate life such as nitrous oxide and methylated halogens.

"[T]hese biogenic gases is most consistent with a productive global photosynthetic biosphere," the scientists write.

The LIFE telescope, which would actually be made up of five satellites working in tandem, would operate by picking up infrared radiation in exoplanets' atmosphere. From this raw data, scientists hope they'd be able to calculate the chemical composition of the exoplanets' atmosphere.

The ultimate goal of the ambitious project is to study in further detail 30 to 50 exoplanets that are of similar size to Earth and see if there's is any glimmer of life in their atmospheres. Astronomers will be focusing their search on systems that are at most 65 light years away from us.

If LIFE is indeed deployed, it may go a long way towards answering one of the universe's biggest mysteries: are we alone?

More on space telescopes: James Webb Spots "Extremely Red" Black Hole

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Scientists Intrigued by Water Planet Where Ocean Appears to Be Boiling – Futurism

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Hot enough to cook an egg. Watery Depths

About 70 light years away from our solar system is a planet that may potentially be covered entirely with water. But before you start imagining oceans just like the ones here on Earth, astronomers at the University of Cambridge say the planet-wide sea could be as hot as a pot of boiling water.

The astronomers uncovered this planet after interpreting data they had picked up using the NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, subsequently publishing their findings in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

They trained their sights on the TOI-270 system, which consists of a red dwarf star orbited by three exoplanets. Of these three planets, they studied data from TOI-270 d, which scientists have described as a smaller version of Neptune due to its gaseous composition.

After crunching data, analysis of the atmosphere's chemical composition suggests it might instead be a "Hycean world" meaning a planet with a large ocean and hydrogen-rich atmosphere. And astonishingly, the scientists also calculated that its temperature could be as hot as 212 degrees Fahrenheit, the boiling point of water.

But the data is open to interpreation. Other scientists who have studied the same planet were quoted by The Guardian saying they think the planet has instead a rocky surface and is covered with a very dense atmosphere made up of super hot steam and hydrogen.

"The temperature in our view is too warm for water to be liquid," University of Montreal astrophysics professor Bjrn Benneke told The Guardian.

No matter the true nature of TOI-270 d, it's astonishing we're now able to pick up the chemical signatures of distant exoplanets.

Since humankind found the first detection of an exoplanet in 1992, the number of exoplanets we have found has grown to the thousands.

Maybe the real question: in that wealth of worlds, will we ever find a planet as hospitable as our own?

More on exoplanets: Astronomers Discover Potentially Habitable Planet

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Scientists Intrigued by Water Planet Where Ocean Appears to Be Boiling - Futurism

Pentagon Says It Has No Record of Reverse-Engineered Alien Technology – Futurism

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That's exactly the kind of thing the Pentagon would say. No Aliens

The Pentagon has released a 63-page, unclassified report to the public, concluding that it had found no evidence of extraterrestrials, let alone the secret reverse-engineering of recovered alien technology by the US government, in its investigation of UFO sightings.

It's yet another wet blanket being thrown on recent conspiratorial and increasingly far-fetched claims.

The Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) "found no verifiable evidence that any UAP sighting has represented extraterrestrial activity," the office's acting director Tim Phillips told reporters, as quoted by ABC News.

"AARO has found no verifiable evidence that the US government or private industry has ever had access to extraterrestrial technology" or ever "illegally or inappropriately withheld" information from Congress.

The news comes after Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency David Grusch came forward last year, alleging that the government had secretly recovered alien spacecraft and even dead "pilots" inside them for decades as part of a top-secret UFO retrieval program.

The topic of "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAPs), as they've come to be known in government circles, has hit fever pitch as of late, with government organizations including NASA taking recent reports of UFO sightings more seriously. At the same time, we've seen a resurgence of conspiracy theories, claims of government cover-ups, and plenty of outlandish claims as well.

What brought the topic back into public consciousness was a series of sightings made by US military pilots over the last few decades, as seen in a number of declassified videos.

But as expected, evidence of an extraterrestrial explanation has yet to surface, despite widespread speculation that these mysterious objects were somehow breaking the laws of physics.

According to the latest report, most of the UAP sightings could be blamed on the "misidentification of ordinary phenomena and objects," and some of them may have been due to the rapid emergence of new technologies like drones.

Thanks to the internet, the topic of UFOs is proving "more pervasive now than ever," according to the report.

"Aside from hoaxes and forgeries, misinformation and disinformation is more prevalent and easier to disseminate now than ever before, especially with today's advanced photo, video, and computer generated imagery tools," the report reads.

To get a better sense of what these UAPs could be, the AARO is now working on a real-time UAP sensor technology dubbed "Gremlin," which could be deployed "in reaction to reports," as Phillips told journalists today.

Whether those efforts will end up bearing any fruit, let alone catch aliens, remains to be seen.

More on UFOs: Alien Probes May Have Already Visited Earth, Scientist Says

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SpaceX, NASA ‘go’ to launch Crew-8 astronaut mission to ISS on March 1 – Space.com

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SpaceX and NASA are officially go to launch their next astronaut mission to International Space Station (ISS) this week, with its four-person crew arriving at their Florida launch site on Sunday (Feb. 25).

Called Crew-8, the upcoming SpaceX mission will launch four astronauts into orbit on the Dragon capsule Endeavour and Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Liftoff is scheduled for March 1 at 12:04 a.m. EST (0504 GMT).

Related: 8 ways SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

"Even though we all go today, we're constantly paying attention to what the rocket and spacecraft are telling us so that we'll make sure that we launch when the crew and the spacecraft are ready to go, and we're ready to have a good flight to the station and a good return," Ken Bowersox, NASA's associate administrator for space operations and a former astronaut, told reporters in a Sunday night teleconference.

SpaceX's Crew-8 mission for NASA will launch NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barrett, Jeannette Epps and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin on a six-month expedition to the ISS. They will relieve their Crew-7 predecessors, another four-astronaut team, who will return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon a week after Crew-8 reaches the ISS.

Dominick will command the Crew-8 flight to the ISS with Barrett as pilot. Epps and Grekenkin are mission specialists. The mission is the first career spaceflight for all but Barrett on the Crew-8 team. NASA and SpaceX initially aimed to launch Crew-8 to the ISS on Feb. 22, but delayed it to March 1 to clear a path for a private moon launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from their same launch pad on Feb. 15.

The Crew-8 astronauts arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday afternoon as they spend their final days on Earth ahead of launch. The quartet will perform a dress rehearsal for their launch overnight on Monday and Tuesday, with SpaceX expected to perform a so-called "hot-fire" test of the Falcon 9's first stage engines a day later.

Steve Stitch, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters Sunday that NASA and SpaceX are working through some final issues to clear ahead of the Crew-8 launch. Those include reviews of composite material fasteners on the Dragon/Falcon 9 launch vehicle for Crew-8 that are expected to be resolved before flight. Engineers are also reviewing some paint discoloration on Crew-7's Dragon capsule currently docked at the ISS, apparently due to residue tape on the capsule, to ensure it's not an issue for reentry and landing.

Crew-8 will mark the fifth flight of the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, which first flew astronauts to the ISS in May 2020 on SpaceX's first-ever human spaceflight, Demo-2. SpaceX and NASA are currently working to certify the reusable Dragon capsules for up to 15 spaceflights, NASA officials said.

SpaceX is one of two commercial companies with multi-billion-dollar contracts to fly astronauts to and from the ISS for NASA. The other company, Boeing, aims to launch the first crewed flight on its Starliner spacecraft no earlier than April 22.

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SpaceX, NASA 'go' to launch Crew-8 astronaut mission to ISS on March 1 - Space.com

A Nasa mission that collided with an asteroid didn’t just leave a dent it reshaped the space rock – theconversation.com

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A frequent idea in sci-fi and apocalyptic films is that of an asteroid striking Earth and causing global devastation. While the probabilities of this kind of mass extinction occurring on our planet are incredibly small, they are not zero.

The results of Nasas Dart mission to the asteroid Dimorphos have now been published. They contain fascinating details about the composition of this asteroid and whether we can defend Earth against incoming space rocks.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) was a spacecraft mission that launched in November 2021. It was sent to an asteroid called Dimorphos and commanded to collide with it, head on, in September 2022.

Dimorphos posed and poses no threat to Earth in the near future. But the mission was designed to see if deflecting an asteroid away from a collision course with Earth was possible through kinetic means in other words, a direct impact of a human-made object on its surface.

Asteroid missions are never easy. The relatively small size of these objects (compared to planets and moons) means there is no appreciable gravity to enable spacecraft to land and collect a sample.

Space agencies have launched a number of spacecraft to asteroids in recent times. For example, the Japanese space agencys (Jaxa) Hayabusa-2 mission reached the asteroid Ryugu in 2018, the same year Nasas Osiris-Rex mission rendezvoused with the asteroid Bennu.

The Japanese Hayabusa missions (1 and 2) fired a small projectile at the surface as they approached it. They would then collect the debris as it flew by.

However, the Dart mission was special in that it was not sent to deliver samples of asteroid material to labs on Earth. Instead, it was to fly at high speed into the space rock and be destroyed in the process.

A high-speed collision with an asteroid needs incredible precision. Darts target of Dimorphos was actually part of a double asteroid system, known as a binary because the smaller object orbits the larger one. This binary contained both Didymus the larger of the two objects and Dimorphos, which behaves effectively as a moon.

The simulations of what has happened to Dimorphos show that while we might expect to see a very large crater on the asteroid from Darts impact, it is more likely that it has, in fact, changed the shape of the asteroid instead.

The collision was of a mass of 580kg hitting an asteroid of roughly 5 billion kg. For comparison, this is equivalent to an ant hitting two buses. But the spacecraft is also travelling around 6 kilometres per second.

The simulation results based on observations of the asteroid Dimorphos have shown that the asteroid now orbits around its larger companion, Didymus, 33 minutes slower than before. Its orbit has gone from 11 hours, 55 minutes to 11 hours, 22 minutes.

The momentum change to the core of Dimorphos is also higher than one would predict from the direct impact, which may seem impossible at first. However, the asteroid is quite weakly constructed, consisting of loose rubble held together by gravity. The impact caused a lot of material to be blown off of Dimorphos.

This material is now travelling in the opposite direction to the impact. This acts like a recoil, slowing down the asteroid.

Observations of all the highly reflective material that has been shed from Dimorphos allows scientists to estimate how much of it has been lost from the asteroid. Their result is roughly 20 million kilograms equivalent to about six of the Apollo-era Saturn V rockets fully loaded with fuel.

Combining all the parameters together (mass, speed, angle and amount of material lost) and simulating the impact has allowed the researchers to be fairly confident about the answer. Confident not only regarding the grain size of the material coming from Dimorphos, but also that the asteroid has limited cohesion and the surface must be constantly altered, or reshaped, by minor impacts.

But what does this tell us about protecting ourselves from an asteroid impact? Significant recent impacts on Earth have included the meteor which broke up in the sky over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, and the infamous Tunguska impact over a remote part of Siberia in 1908.

While these were not the kinds of events that are able to cause mass extinctions like the 10km object that wiped out the dinosaurs when it struck our planet 66 million years ago the potential for damage and loss of life with smaller objects such as those at Chelyabinsk and Tunguska is very high.

The Dart mission cost US$324 million (255 million), which is low for a space mission, and with its development phase completed, a similar mission to go and deflect an asteroid heading our way could be launched more cheaply.

The big variable here is how much warning we will have, because a change in orbit of 30 minutes as was observed when Dart struck Dimorphos will make little difference if the asteroid is already very close to Earth. However, if we can predict the object path from further out preferably outside the Solar System and make small changes, this could be enough to divert the path of an asteroid away from our planet.

We can expect to see more of these missions in the future, not only because of interest in the science surrounding asteroids, but because the ease of removing material from them means that private companies might want to step up their ideas of mining these space rocks for precious metals.

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A Nasa mission that collided with an asteroid didn't just leave a dent it reshaped the space rock - theconversation.com

Ingenuity Mars helicopter snapped rotor blade during hard landing last month (video, photo) – Space.com

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There's no way Ingenuity could fly through this.

Ingenuity, the 4-pound (1.8 kilograms) helicopter that journeyed to Mars with NASA's Perseverance rover, was grounded for good after suffering a hard landing during a Jan. 18 flight.

New observations by Perseverance show just how rough that touchdown was and make it easy to understand why Ingenuity is now a frozen feature of the Martian landscape.

Related: NASA to 'wiggle' broken Ingenuity Mars helicopter's blades to analyze damage

We already knew that the Jan. 18 landing broke off the tip of at least one of Ingenuity's four rotors; a selfie snapped by the little chopper shortly thereafter made that plain.

That damage by itself was enough to end Ingenuity's flying days on Mars, mission team members said at the time. Helicopters must be perfectly balanced to maintain controlled flight, and losing bits of a rotor robbed Ingenuity of that balance.

But the drone lost more than just a rotor tip. The new Perseverance photos, which the rover took with its SuperCam remote imager on Sunday (Feb. 25), show that at least one of Ingenuity's four rotor blades snapped clean off on Jan. 18.

Ingenuity and Perseverance landed together on the floor of Mars' Jezero Crater in February 2021. Two months later, the rotorcraft deployed from the rover's belly and began its prime mission, a five-flight campaign designed to show that powered flight is possible on Mars despite the planet's thin atmosphere.

Ingenuity aced that campaign, then shifted to an extended mission during which it served as a scout for the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance. The helicopter racked up a whopping 67 sorties during this phase of its Mars operations, which were led (like those of Perseverance) by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.

Its final flight occurred over a sandy patch of terrain that lacked prominent rocks and other features that Ingenuity relied on for navigation, mission team members said. Ingenuity could not stick the landing, and its fast-spinning blades hit the ground.

The helicopter's legacy is assured. Ingenuity was the first vehicle ever to achieve powered flight in the skies of a world beyond Earth, and its success will pave the way for other aerial explorers.

"The NASA JPL team didn't just demonstrate the technology," Tiffany Morgan, deputy director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said during a Jan. 31 webcast tribute to Ingenuity. "They demonstrated an approach that if we use in the future will really help us to explore other planets and be as awe-inspiring, as amazing, as Ingenuity has been."

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Ingenuity Mars helicopter snapped rotor blade during hard landing last month (video, photo) - Space.com

Accelerating telco transformation in the era of AI – The Official Microsoft Blog – Microsoft

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AI is redefining digital transformation for every industry, including telecommunications. Every operators AI journey will be distinct. But each AI journey requires cloud-native transformation, which provides the foundation for any organization to harness the full potential of AI, driving innovation, efficiency and business value.

This new era of AI will create incredible economic growth and represent a profound shift as a percentage impact on global GDP, which is just over $100 trillion. So, when we look at the potential value driven by this next generation of AI technology, we may see a boost to global GDP of an additional $7 trillion to $10 trillion.

Embracing AI will help operators unlock new revenue streams, deliver superior customer experiences and pioneer future innovations for growth.

Operators can now leverage cloud services that are adaptive, purpose-built for telecommunications and span from near edge on-premises environments to the far edges of Earth and space to monetize investments, modernize networks, elevate customer experiences and streamline business operations with AI.

Our aim is to be the most trusted co-innovation partner for the telecommunications industry. We want to help accelerate telco transformation and empower operators to succeed in the era of AI, which is why we are committed to working with operators, enterprises and developers on the future cloud.

At MWC in Barcelona this week, we are announcing updates to our Azure for Operators portfolio to help operators seize the opportunity ahead in a cloud- and AI-native future.

AI opens new growth opportunities for operators. The biggest potential is that operators, as they embrace this new era of cloud and AI, can also help their customers in their own transformation.

For example, spam calls and malicious activities are a well-known menace and are growing exponentially, and often impact the most vulnerable members of society. Besides the annoyance, the direct cost of those calls adds up. For example, in the United States, FTC data for 2023 shows $850 million in reported fraud losses stemming from scam calls.

Today, we are announcing the public preview of Azure Operator Call Protection, a new service that uses AI to help protect consumers from scam calls. The service uses real-time analysis of voice content, alerting consumers who opt into the service when there is suspicious in-call activity. Azure Operator Call Protection works on any endpoint, mobile or landline, and it works entirely through the network without needing any app installation.

In the U.K., BT Group is trialing Azure Operator Call Protection to identify, educate and protect their customers from potential fraud, making it harder for bad actors to take advantage of their customers.

We are also announcing the public preview of Azure Programmable Connectivity (APC), which provides a unified, standard interface across operators networks. APC provides seamless access to Open Gateway for developers to create cloud and edge-native applications that interact with the intelligence of the network. APC also empowers operators to commercialize their network APIs and simplifies their access for developers and is available in the Azure Marketplace.

AI opens incredible opportunities to modernize network operations, providing new levels of real-time insights, intelligence and automation. Operators, such as Three UK, are already using Azure Operator Insights to eliminate data silos and deliver actionable business insights by enabling the collection and analysis of massive quantities of network data gathered from complex multi-vendor network functions. Designed for operator-specific workloads, operators tackle complex scenarios with Azure Operator Insights, such as understanding the health of their networks and the quality of their subscribers experiences.

Azure Operator Insights uses a modern data mesh architecture for dividing complex domains into manageable sub-domains called data products. These data products integrate large datasets from different sources and vendors to provide data visibility from disaggregated networks for comprehensive analytical and business insights. Using this data product factory capability, operators, network equipment providers and solution integrators can create unique data products for one customer or published to the Azure Marketplace for many customers to use.

Today, we are also announcing the limited preview of Copilot in Azure Operator Insights, a groundbreaking, operator-focused, generative AI capability helping operators move from reactive to proactive and predictive in tangible ways. Engineers use the Copilot to interact with network insights using natural language and receive simple explanations of what the data means and possible actions to take, resolving network issues quickly and accurately, ultimately improving customer satisfaction.

Copilot in Azure Operator Insights is delivering AI-infused insights to drive network efficiency for customers like Three UK and participating partners including Amdocs, Accenture and BMC Remedy. Three UK is using Copilot in Azure Operator Insights to unlock actionable intelligence on network health and customer experience quality of service, a process that previously took weeks or months to assess, is now possible to perform in minutes.

Additionally, with our next-generation hybrid cloud platform, Azure Operator Nexus, we offer the ability to future-proof the network to support mission-critical workloads, and power new revenue-generating services and applications. This immense opportunity is what drives operators to modernize their networks with Azure Operator Nexus, a carrier-grade, hybrid cloud platform and AI-powered automation and insights unlocking improved efficiency, scalability and reliability. Purpose-built for and validated by tier one operators to run mission-critical workloads, Azure Operator Nexus enables operators to run workloads on-premises or on Azure, where they can seamlessly deploy, manage, secure and monitor everything from the bare metal to the tenant.

E& UAE is taking advantage of the Azure Operator Nexus platform to lower total cost of ownership (TCO), leverage the power of AI to simplify operations, improve time to market and focus on their core competencies. And operations at AT&T that took months with previous generations of technology now take weeks to complete with Azure Operator Nexus.

We continue to build robust capabilities into Azure Operator Nexus, including new deployment options giving operators the flexibility to use one carrier-grade platform to deliver innovative solutions on near-edge, far-edge and enterprise edge.

Read more about the latest Azure for Operator updates here.

Operators are creating differentiation by collaborating with us to improve customer experiences and streamline their business operations with AI. Operators are leveraging Microsofts copilot stack and copilot experiences across our core products and services, such as Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Copilot for M365 and Microsoft Security Copilot to drive productivity and improve customer experiences.

An average operator spends 20% ofannual revenue on capital expenditures.However, this investment does nottranslate into an equivalentincrease in revenue growth. Operators need to empower their service teams with data-driven insights to increase productivity, enhance care, use conversational AI to enable self-service, expedite issue resolution and deliver frictionless customer experiences at scale.

Together with our partner ecosystem, we are investing in creating a comprehensive set of solutions for the telecommunications industry. This includes the Azure for Operators portfolio a carrier-grade hybrid cloud platform, voice core, mobile core and multi-access edge compute, as well as our suite of generative AI solutions that holistically address the needs of network operators as they transform their networks.

As customers continue to embrace generative AI, we remain committed to working with operators and enterprises alike to future-proof networks and unlock new revenue streams in a cloud- and AI-native future.

Tags: AI, Azure for Operators, Azure Operator Call Protection, Azure Operator Insights, Azure Operator Nexus, Copilot in Azure Operator Insights

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Accelerating telco transformation in the era of AI - The Official Microsoft Blog - Microsoft

‘Wonder’ nanotech material that will change the world declared safe Earth.com – Earth.com

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In an era where technological advancements are rapidly transforming lives, scientists have made a significant stride in nanotechnology, focusing on graphene a material renowned for its exceptional properties and vast potential in various applications.

This revolutionary nanomaterial, celebrated for being the thinnest, strongest, and most flexible material known, is now being developed with a keen eye on human health safety.

Recent research reveals that controlled inhalation of a specific form of graphene, known as graphene oxide, does not present short-term health risks to lung or cardiovascular functions.

This finding comes from the first-ever controlled exposure clinical trial involving human participants, emphasizing the materials safety under specific conditions.

Graphene oxide, a water-compatible form of graphene, was used in this pioneering study to ensure ultra-purity and compatibility for potential medical applications.

The study, a collaborative effort by researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester, signifies a critical step in understanding graphenes interaction with the human body.

Despite the promising results, the researchers advocate for further investigations to explore the effects of higher doses or prolonged exposure to graphene, considering its incredibly fine structure.

Graphenes allure as a wonder material stems from its discovery in 2004 and its potential to revolutionize industries ranging from electronics to water purification.

Its application in developing targeted therapies for cancer and other health conditions, as well as its use in implantable devices and sensors, underscores the need for rigorous safety assessments before clinical use.

The research involved 14 volunteers who were exposed to graphene oxide under meticulously controlled conditions.

Participants breathed in the material through a mask while cycling within a mobile exposure chamber, ensuring precise monitoring of any health effects.

The study meticulously measured impacts on lung function, blood pressure, blood clotting, and inflammation markers, with follow-up tests conducted to compare responses to different sizes of graphene oxide and clean air.

Remarkably, the study found no significant adverse effects on lung function or blood pressure, with only a minimal suggestion of impact on blood clotting a finding that underscores the need for careful material design in nanotechnology applications.

Dr. Mark Miller, from the University of Edinburgh, emphasized the importance of ensuring the safe manufacture of nanomaterials like graphene to harness their full potential safely.

Nanomaterials such as graphene hold such great promise, but we must ensure they are manufactured in a way that is safe before they can be used more widely in our lives, explained Dr. Miller.

Being able to explore the safety of this unique material in human volunteers is a huge step forward in our understanding of how graphene could affect the body. With careful design we can safely make the most of nanotechnology.

Similarly, Professor Kostas Kostarelos of the University of Manchester and the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) in Barcelona highlighted the decade-long journey to this research milestone.

He reflected on the comprehensive approach combining materials science, biology, and clinical expertise.

This is the first-ever controlled study involving healthy people to demonstrate that very pure forms of graphene oxide of a specific size distribution and surface character can be further developed in a way that would minimize the risk to human health, said Kostarelos.

It has taken us more than 10 years to develop the knowledge to carry out this research, from a materials and biological science point of view, but also from the clinical capacity to carry out such controlled studies safely by assembling some of the worlds leading experts in this field.

The British Heart Foundations Professor Bryan Williams lauded the studys implications for the development of new medical devices and treatments, expressing anticipation for future studies that could pave the way for the safe use of nanomaterials in life-saving applications.

The discovery that this type of graphene can be developed safely, with minimal short term side effects, could open the door to the development of new devices, treatment innovations and monitoring techniques, Williams said.

We look forward to seeing larger studies over a longer timeframe to better understand how we can safely use nanomaterials like graphene to make leaps in delivering lifesaving drugs to patients.

In summary, this exciting and long overdue study on graphene, particularly its oxide form, marks a significant milestone in the journey towards harnessing nanotechnologys full potential while prioritizing human health.

Researchers have demonstrated that controlled exposure to graphene oxide poses no immediate threat to lung or cardiovascular health, laying a foundation for future innovations in various fields, from medicine to environmental technologies.

This research reassures the public and scientific community about the safety of emerging nanomaterials and encourages continued exploration and development, ensuring that the incredible promise of graphene can be realized safely and effectively.

As we venture further into the realm of nanotechnology, this study serves as a pivotal reminder of the importance of meticulous research and responsible application in unlocking the transformative power of materials like graphene.

The full study was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

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'Wonder' nanotech material that will change the world declared safe Earth.com - Earth.com

H3 reaches orbit on second launch – SpaceNews

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Updated Feb. 17 with additional details from JAXA.

WASHINGTON Japans H3 rocket successfully reached orbit on its second launch Feb. 16, nearly a year after its inaugural launch failed.

The H3 rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 7:22 p.m. Eastern after a two-day delay caused by weather. There were no issues reported during the countdown, with liftoff occurring at the beginning of a window lasting more than two and a half hours.

A key point in the launch was the separation of the upper stage and ignition of its LE-5B-3 engine. On the vehicles inaugural launch in March 2023, that engine failed to ignite, forcing controllers to issue a destruct command to destroy the stage and its payload, the ALOS-3 Earth observation satellite.

On this launch, designated H3 Test Flight 2 (H3TF2) by the Japanese space agency JAXA, the engine did ignite. The stage reached a preliminary orbit of about 674 kilometers 16 and a half minutes after liftoff, and moments later deployed one of its payloads, the CE-SAT-1E imaging satellite built by Canon Electronics.

It was scheduled to be followed about nine minutes later by the other secondary payload, a cubesat called TIRSAT. JAXA said in a later statement that the separation signal for tIRSAT was sent, but did not explicitly state that the cubesat had deployed.

A second burn of the upper stage took place one hour and 47 minutes after liftoff, lasting 26 seconds. After that, the upper stage deployed its primary payload, a mass simulator called Vehicle Evaluation Payload (VEP) 4. VEP-4 is a metallic column with the same mass and center of gravity as ALOS-3. JAXA flew the inert payload after criticism about flying ALOS-3, a $200 million satellite, on the rockets first launch.

That second burn was designed to demonstrate the ability to perform a controlled reentry of both the upper stage and VEP-4, said Yasuo Ishii, JAXA vice president, during a session of the Space Debris Conference organized by the Saudi Space Agency Feb. 11.

JAXA and the vehicles prime contractor, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, spent months investigating the inaugural launch failure. Engineers concluded that while the rocket received the signal to ignite the engine, an electrical failure prevented the ignition system from starting up.

While the investigation did not identify a single root cause, it did find three scenarios that most likely explained what happened: a short-circuit in wiring in the ignition system, a failed transistor in the ignition system and a failure in one computer in the stages control system that sent electrical current to a redundant computer that caused it to fail. JAXA made changes to prevent any of those scenarios from reoccurring.

The potential problems with the ignition system also affected the older H-2A rocket, which uses a version of the same upper-stage engine. That grounded the H-2A for half a year, with the rocket returning to flight in September.

The H3 is key to Japans future space plans. The rocket will succeed the H-2A and launch civil and military missions, including the new HTV-X spacecraft that will transport cargo to the International Space Station. The H3 is also designed to operate at far lower costs than the H-2A, making the vehicle more competitive in the commercial launch market.

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H3 reaches orbit on second launch - SpaceNews